A Long July

My apologies for how "quiet" my blog has been recently. July was a long difficult month. It feels like a lifetime ago that I returned from the youth mission trip. July started out with a busy week sandwiched between the mission trip and my family vacation. A week spent doing testing for the workers compensation process, several work items, saying goodbye to my good friend Dan who will be studying in Ireland for at least the next year, and preparing for being away from home for another week. The kennels that I prefer were all booked on the 4th of July, so I couldn't leave until Sunday morning. I missed the first night at the lake with the family, but met up with everyone at my cousin Brad's high school graduation party outside of Pittsburgh. It was great to see my aunts, uncles and cousins. We had a really nice day, ate tons of delicious food and I spent a good bit of time drooling over cousin Steven's new Harley.

Our week at the lake was really nice except for the fact that most of us were fighting a summer cold for at least part of the week. I actually spent one whole day in bed with chills, a sore throat and a horrible headache. We still had a really nice time and it was very relaxing, but there ought to be some sort of law against being sick on vacation. It was also my first vacation in fifteen years without Danielle, so that added a strange dimension to the week for me. Luckily swimming, boating, tubing, fishing and being with my family were way too much fun to allow either the cold or the lack of my spouse to overshadow them.

I returned from vacation to a very busy week at the church. On Sunday the 12th our youth group, along with the Anglican youth group down the street and two young ladies from the Czech Republic (visiting our church for 6 weeks), went to Quiet Waters Park and rented kayaks, canoes, and peddle boats for an afternoon on the water. Monday through Friday that week our church was a buzz with over 65 kids for Vacation Bible School. Many of the teens from our youth group and St. Anne's group help shepherd the little ones around and I lead worship in the style of Taizé on Thursday. Its always a lot of fun and quite exhausting. Five groups rotate through in 30 minute intervals with barely a chance to catch your breath. At the end of the week Miss, my good friend and the Director of Childrens Ministry, and I took the 20 teen helpers out for pizza. On Saturday the 18th we had a great turn out of current youth and some college students home for the summer at Sweat Equity to work on our church campus.

The workers compensation process has taken a few bizarre turns this past month. After the function evaluation was completed, I met with my vocational counselor again and we reviewed a rough draft of the plan he has drawn up. As he had told me previously, my plans for seminary are too far down the road to incorporate into their vocational plan, so they are recommending I go back into mortgages or some other similar office based occupation for the time being. He said that since I have a college degree and a prior career that was not physical there wasn't much that they would do for me other than provide leads and monitor my job search. I was advised that perhaps it would make more sense for me to investigate the possibility of a permanency award since I am now considered to be permanently partially disabled, and handle the job search on my own. Unfortunately I have run into several dead ends attempting to get answers regarding a permanent award. While trying to get answers and navigate this maze of bureaucracy a new adjuster took over my file. She "discovered" that I have been working my youth job part time while receiving disability checks for my facility job and feels that I have been overpaid for the last year and a half. She stopped authorizing my disability checks and has been in the process of recalculating my benefits for the last two weeks. I put discovered in quotes because this has been very much out in the open from the very beginning. I am awaiting something formal in writing so that I can appeal to the state Workers' Compensation Commission and have contacted an attorney since this has suddenly gotten very complicated.

Where the beginning of this month was chocked full of activity, the end of the month was way too empty leaving what felt like far too much time to dwell on the problems with my disability claim, the passing of my first wedding anniversary since my wife left me, and the first time in over 16 months without doctor appointments or physical therapy. I have very much been "in the thick of it" for the last 16 months. This lull was no fun, but I realize that it was a very necessary step in my healing process. I needed the down time to reflect, digest and experience a lot of the emotions that got pushed aside while I was in crisis mode.

The end of July also included my 39th birthday. I celebrated with my family at my parents' house on the 23rd and then enjoyed a concert on the 24th featuring two of my favorite artists. I finally got to see Willie Nelson live, although he was chased off of the stage by a lightening storm after only 4 or 5 songs. The best performance of the night was by the artist who interested me the least going in. John Mellencamp put on quite a show and had everyone dancing and singing along. The headliner for the tour was the one and only Bob Dylan who unfortunately was not in the mood to enunciate (even more than usual). Luckily I've seen him previously and I know he can put on a great live show, because this was not an inspired performance, although the song selection was great and the band was fabulous.

Last month had its highlights and the good definitely outweighed the bad, but I must say I am glad that July is behind us. I'm looking forward to making progress on the Workers' Compensation issues this month, gearing up for the beginning of the program year with the youth group, getting back to work on a full time basis and making some headway on my investigation of seminaries.